Northern Threat: Why the Kremlin Is Probing NATO's Eastern Flank

Before the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I refused to believe until the last moment that they would dare — there was no readiness or logistics mobilization, no deployment of numerous repair bases and road units. I refused to believe that “floor it” and reach Kaniv in 48 hours, and then “it’ll work out somehow” against a country the size of France — that this was their actual plan. Now we are closely watching the northern part of NATO’s Eastern flank, already carrying a bloody experience: they really are insane and have put half a million people in coffins just because they thought it would go like in Crimea after Debaltseve. And right now very alarming bells are ringing there.

Operational concealment and border isolation

From 21 to 26 September in Kingisepp and Slantsy districts of Leningrad region (right up against Estonian Narva and Ivangorod) the FSB imposed a strict curfew with a ban on movement. The official excuse is “possible mobilization desertions.” In reality: this clears the operational area of unnecessary eyes, dashcams, and locals’ smartphones. This is classic preparation of a deployment area to covertly move columns, position EW systems or Iskander OTRK. Narva is extremely tense. So far this is practicing area lockdown, then autumn off-roading will begin — but they are training very actively.

All Baltic countries and Poland are urgently forming a security strip from 20 to 150 meters wide. The key tactic for 2026 year: the Lithuanians abandoned planting shelterbelts and began artificially bogging down the terrain to make the border area physically impassable for heavy armor by 2030 year. The network of military depots with engineering obstacles (dragon’s teeth, minefields, concrete bunkers) was expanded from 27 to 50 sites. NATO is preparing for a viscous contact war.

Electromagnetic terror and probing air defenses

Since the beginning of 2025 year the number of antennas for EW complexes (especially fixed systems like 14Ts227 “Tobol” and “Murmansk-BN”) in Kaliningrad region has multiplied. The effective range of jamming and spoofing systems reaches 450 km, covering the Baltic, Poland, and part of Scandinavia. According to the Polish Communications Institute, in the summer of 2026 year prolonged signal disruptions (GPS, Galileo, GLONASS) were recorded in the Gdańsk area on 60–70% of days. This is a direct hit on civil aviation and maritime navigation. On 21 August 2026 year the Polish minesweeper ORP Albatros was hit by a directed radio-electronic strike during operations in the Baltic Sea.

On 23 September the leaders of the Baltic states wrote an urgent letter to Ursula von der Leyen. The gist: they urgently need half a billion euros by the end of 2026 year for a dense anti-drone defense of the eastern flank (a “drone wall”). They cite intelligence indicating a high probability that the RF is preparing massive UAV strikes on their infrastructure. Neither Poland nor the Baltic states historically have layered air defenses capable of withstanding several hundred RF aircraft of generation 4+, and now swarms of drones on top of that. In August at the Latvian Sēlija training ground BATT26 exercises took place where the Alliance tested drone defenses — from detection to physical suppression. At the same time the Netherlands extended the mission of its MQ-9 Reaper ISR drones on the eastern flank through the end of 2027 year.

On 16 September Finnish emergency services were scrambled — a Russian drone brazenly flew right over the no-fly zone of the Loviisa NPP. And on 21 September Latvia (where a Shahed recently fell near Rēzekne) and Poland scrambled combat aviation due to Russian UAV activity near their borders. The Russians are testing in real time the reaction speed of NATO radars, air-police interceptors, and AWACS aircraft from depth.

Lithuania, understanding that a regular contingent would be insufficient for deterrence, this week by parliamentary decision lifted the ban on hosting nuclear weapons in the country. This was not done for a headline — it’s a direct response to intelligence about the deployment of Russian strike groupings. It’s logical: aircraft of a French squadron capable of delivering strategic nuclear strikes were already redeployed to Poland during crises. If an old bunker-dweller really wants to go to heaven while everyone else dies as he gets Botox and regular check-ups — the Alliance pulls out its last trump card.

By the way, on 25 September the state Russian agency RIA Novosti published an article titled “Russia Faces Another SVO. It Will Be Very Short.” The author, Aleksandr Nosovich, a member of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy and editor-in-chief of RuBaltic.Ru — an element of a network created by the Russians to interfere in Baltic countries’ internal politics — wrote the piece in response to the Lithuanian parliament’s decision and it is full of threats: “One cannot say that Russia has no choice at all. Russia has a choice: how to fight. It’s not even about whether it will be long or short. Clearly, quickly: a military conflict in the Baltics simply because of geography cannot be the same as in Ukraine. It’s about what means might be used. And if our opponents are the first to move the conversation into the realm of nuclear threat, Russia may even allow itself to forgo sending a ground contingent. Only missiles with the appropriate payload.”

Accumulating reserves

There are currently no Russian airborne forces on the Dobropillia-Lyman and Kupiansk vectors. Units that were not ground down to nothing at Chasiv Yar (98-th PDD) and did not get bogged down in the Kursk meat grinder (76-th and 106-th divisions) have been pulled off the line of combat. Given the suspicious lack of military transport aviation activity (Il-76), they are clearly preserving the remnants of the VDV in deep rear as a mobile strategic reserve, replenishing and rearming it.

After the August–September meat grinder where our 1-th Army Corps surgically cleaned out the 90-th tank division (those same 237 killed and 44 wounded), it lost striking potential and critical mass of armor under the strikes of our FPV and bomber teams. Russian command had to pull surviving regiments of the 90-th TD into the rear for restoration, leaving infantry in the “pocket.”

The 4-th Kantemir and 47-th tank divisions show a similar picture. Over the summer they lost a significant portion of working T-80BVM and T-90M tanks on the Kupiansk-Lyman axis. Due to intense work by our UAVs, mining, and cluster artillery, tank assaults became ineffective, and the armor was moved to operational reserve.

Can they restore the manpower and combat capability of the VDV and these tank units in the rear, for example based on training centers and deployable divisions? I think yes. And they are clearly not preparing them for meat grinder assaults in Donbas.

Sabotage in the rear

OSINT analysts note that old Russian oil tankers and so-called oceanographic research vessels (like Admiral Vladimirskiy or Sibiryakov) constantly reduce speed or “break down” right over critical submarine fiber-optic cables and gas pipelines (like Balticconnector) that link Finland, Estonia, and Sweden. This is clearly practicing an infrastructure blackout scenario.

There is a wave of small but systematic sabotage: arson at logistics warehouses (like the Marywilska shopping center 44 in Warsaw or factories in Wrocław), relay cabinets on railways. The GRU (including unit 29155) hires local marginal figures via Telegram for crypto pay. The goal is not to inflict strategic damage but to overload internal security services (ABW in Poland, VDD in Latvia) and test firefighters’ and police reaction times before the real “H-hour.”

On the Ust-Luga — Baltiysk line there is maximum loading of Ro-Ro ferries (roll-on/roll-off ships like Marshal Rokossovsky and Ambal). Civilian trucks stand in multi-day queues because priority is given to oversized military cargo. Under the guise of supplying the exclave they are actively bringing in modules for EW complexes and fresh ammo for Iskander OTRK and coastal Bastion systems. Kaliningrad is being pumped up as the main A2/AD zone to block the Suwałki corridor.

Blackmail instead of blitzkrieg

What does all this resemble? They are not preparing a tank rush to the English Channel. They are preparing a hybrid isolation. Blind GPS, cut submarine communication cables with a shadow fleet, send hordes of migrants from the Belarusian border onto Polish bayonets, and amid that chaos — send in “peacekeepers” to protect Russian-speakers in Narva or break a corridor to Kaliningrad, threatening a nuclear club if NATO responds.

Also, it’s selling another “Pobeda” (tm) to their own citizens, who are already a bit tired of burned warehouses full of Wildberries packages and half-empty gas stations in St. Petersburg due to diesel shortages.

But the main goal is bargaining over Ukraine. After the hollowed-out flanks near Kupiansk, Lyman, and Dobropillia, the timetable for starting battles over the Sloviansk-Kramatorsk agglomeration is clearly being pushed back by many months. Given the pace of advances near Chasiv Yar and Pokrovsk — maybe by a couple of years.

The burdens on the Kremlin economy amid falling extraction, knocking out 40% of refining capacity, and the blockade of grain transshipment via the Black Sea will die much sooner. Therefore their only viable option is blackmail and an attempt to overturn the geopolitical table. Create a crisis of such scale that the EU and US force us to stop knocking out their refineries, factories, and arsenals in exchange for de-escalation in the Baltics.

There are literally 3–4 weeks left before the start of autumn off-roading in the Baltic. Heavy armor in the forests near Narva or Suwałki will get stuck in the mud, but for a hybrid scenario (special forces seizing cities, blackout, cutting cables with a shadow fleet) weather is no obstacle. The FSB closed the border zone until the end of September, and NATO’s “drone wall” is not yet built.

Everything indicates that operational readiness is maximal right now. They desperately need to stir up the situation before the November US Congressional elections, while American politics is consumed by internal disputes and the making of hard geopolitical decisions in Washington is slowed.

I hope the Alliance also clearly sees this fork. It’s simple: either the West gets scared and pressures us, or the Kremlin bangs its head against the Baltics the same way it’s banging it against the landings near Kupiansk. And judging by the construction of the “drone wall,” NATO is studying this math too.

Kyrylo Danylchenko aka Ronin, LB.ua

Image above: Estonian servicemembers near “dragon’s teeth” on the Baltic line of defense, June 2026 year. Photo: EPA/UPG

“Argument”

On this topic:

Fear as Part of the Rashist Strategy for Escalation in the Baltics

Russia Could Attack the Baltic States by the End of 2028 Year — Commander-in-Chief of the Latvian Armed Forces

Baltic Countries Exited the Energy Ring With Russia and Belarus